While the entire country has returned to school (and my homies in Colorado have been edumacating themselves since June), tomorrow is the big day for my pre-k youngster.

I’ve put little thought into it. I’m the last-minutest of last-minuters. Heaven help him when he tells me on a Tuesday morning, “I need a colonial costume, a book report on salmon spawning and a slow cooker full of locally-sourced clam chowder, today.”

What’s giving me the most anxiety?

Food.

Tomorrow is only orientation for the parents with an hour-long visit to the classroom for the kiddo, so I think to myself, “I have another couple of days for lunch-packing dress rehearsal.”

But who’m I kidding? I’ll wing it.

Originally, I’d planned to use my mom’s formula from 1981-1994: PB&J, Capri-Sun, a sprig of grapes (usually past their prime…tasting like wine), and two chocolate chip Soft Batch cookies. I’m not kidding. I ate that 98% of the lunches through my senior year. My beloved mom was too cheap (was that it?) to let me eat “hot lunch”, except for pig-in-a-blanket days (my fave) and holidays (I loved the school’s turkey and mashed potatoes.)

I’ve asked around and been informed that I am, indeed, planning lunches from 1987. Some of the advice:

Breaded sandwiches are last century.

Peanut butter brings out the “allergy lynch moms” (direct quote)

Bread makes kids groggy

Go paleo…meat-wrapped cheese.

And everyone, but EVERYONE, packs yogurt and hummus.

Since WHEN did hummus become an elementary school snack? “Because kids love to dip stuff.” Ridiculous. I mean…healthier than my lunch, but seriously. We’re ridiculous.

“>This list was helpful (and funny), even though I was the butt of the joke.

I can take it, Keeper of the Fruit Loops.

Weeks ago, I was merely asking myself, “Will I become a parent who cuts off crusts?”

My kids don’t even eat sandwiches. We do open-faced everything (“salmon toast”, “ham toast.”) I don’t know how it happened, but my kids barely understand how to hold two slices of bread with filling and eat it together. They dissect it all: PB&J, hamburgers, grilled cheese.

Which reminds of my first grade lunch transgressions: I ate ¾ of the crusts of my PB&J. Mom never wasted food, and though we never discussed bread crusts, somehow I knew a good boy ate his crusts. I’d nibble the top and sides, saving the soft bread in the middle for the end. But I never ate that 4^th side.

I tossed it under the table. Because Mom would yell if I brought it home, thus “wasting it”.

Imagine that cafeteria custodian who saw one 3 ½ inch bread crust under the last table by the windows Every. Single. Day.

One time a lunch aide saw the crust and asked, “Who threw that?”

I stared blankly

Now, some aide is going to ask Ellison, “Who threw that exquisitely blanched broccoli floret?”

I imagine he’ll lie as effectively as I.